For the days up until Christmas I’ll be sharing some short memories of Christmases past that I remember.
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You know if you have pets, like a cat or a dog, and it’s time for Christmas trees and presents, well there will be mishaps.
This one is when we had only dogs – a couple of Basset Hounds, a part Lab, and a part Lab/Basset. They always loved getting into things, and especially at Christmas time.
My daughters had gotten one of those Advent calendars each, and behind each little numbered door was a piece of chocolate candy. I think they’d opened one or two, but then the dogs got into the treats, tearing into the cardboard calendars and eating all the candy. They felt no ill effects from eating the chocolate – and I did kind of worry about that – but they were fine. The dogs showed no remorse whatsoever.
My girls, though, were very upset. That was the first time they’d had one of these calendars, and I can’t remember if they ever got another one after this disaster. 🙂
Here’s the culprit’s pictures from better days: (sadly, they’ve all passed on now)
Place: In-law’s house in the country, or at least at the edge of their little town.
Year: Maybe around 1970 or so.
We lived in another state at the time, but would once in awhile make a trip down to see my in-laws. They moved around a lot, from one old house to another, so each time it was a different experience.
This place, as with most of the others was old fashioned, and run down. It had no air conditioning, as most of them didn’t. In the summer time in Texas, you really need one, though. They had portable fans, which only stirred the stultifying hot air around the rooms. We sweated – a lot.
I can’t remember what we found to do, exactly, but probably my husband went off with his dad to the mechanic shop. My MIL and Sister-In-Law and I stayed around the house. I do remember us making crafts out of colorful foam rubber – making those things we called ‘fridgies’. They had books of patterns to make. We’d cut the foam out, and attach little stick on magnets to the back. They were to be hung on the refrigerator as decorations. I made a butterfly.
At the evening time, I’m sure we cooked supper, and watched TV. I do remember some of those really old country western, black & white music variety shows. I really didn’t like that kind of music.
There wasn’t enough beds, so the mister slept on the couch, and I had to share with my MIL. Weird, of course. We’d bring the fan into the bedroom, and also the windows would be open, hoping for a breath of air. And, it does cool off a bit after dark.
First thing in the morning, after an uncomfortable night, it actually was nice for a few minutes.
The house was cooler, and dim in that time right before sunrise. We’d finally quit sweating, and so I would get up to look out the window. Only pasture land out there, and cows. The cows were close to the house and were mooing. Such a peaceful sound. There were also chickens clucking and roosters crowing.
That was my favorite memory of those days. The cows looking over the wire fence at me, and mooing. 🙂
You need to choose a verse from a song and use it in an original poem or story.
You must include the name of the song and the singer at the end or beginning.
You need to challenge someone else and invent ONE rule they need to follow.
You must credit the person who started this challenge and the person who challenged you (see above.)
You must include the rules of this challenge.
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ONE rule that I’m asking Barbara to follow is: choose a song about a place you love
Here’s the verse I chose to write about. The song it’s from is posted below. It’s “Texas In My Rear View Mirror”, by Mac Davis.
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I guess happiness was Lubbock, Texas
In my rear view mirror
But now happiness is Lubbock, Texas
Growing nearer and dearer
And the vision is getting clearer
In my dreams
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My take on this song and lyric:
~
I always wanted to travel, to see new things and new places, but felt stuck in my hometown. That’s just how it was up until I got married. My husband joined the U. S. Army, and we got to travel to places all over the world. I finally got my dream of flying in an airplane, seeing other countries, having new experiences. It was great fun living in Japan and Germany, and many stateside towns and cities. We moved a lot.
The thing is though, I’d get homesick for my extended family and wish I was back home here in Lubbock TX a lot of the time. There would be years in between seeing them. This was way before computers and facetime, and smart phones. We had to write actual letters to each other, and it might take weeks to hear from them. Calling home was way too expensive at that long distance.
So for awhile, I thought my hometown in the rear view mirror was great.
But I’ll tell you, coming home after being away for so long, seeing the skyline from the road or from the air, seeing my family waiting and waving for me, well, there’s just nothing else like the feeling you get … I’m home.
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~note~ Mac Davis is originally from Lubbock TX, and we even have a street named after him – Mac Davis Lane~
There are a lot of actual scenes of the city in the video.
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“Texas in My Rear View Mirror,” is by Mac Davis, and is on his 1980 album of the same name.
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I was just fifteen and outta control
Lost to James Dean and rock and roll
I knew down deep in my country soul
That I had to get away
Hollywood was a lady in red
Who danced in my dreams
As I tossed in bed
I knew I’d wind up
In jail or dead
If I had to stay
I thought happiness
Was Lubbock, Texas
In my rear view mirror
My momma kept calling me home
But I just did not want to hear her
And the vision was getting clearer
In my dreams
So I laid out one night in June
Stoned on the glow of the Texas moon
Humming an old Buddy Holly tune
Called Peggy Sue
With my favorite jeans
And a cheap guitar
I ran off chasing a distant star
If Buddy Holly could make it that far
I figured I could too
And I thought happiness
Was Lubbock, Texas
In my rear view mirror
My momma kept calling me home
But I just did not want to hear her
And the vision was getting clearer
In my dreams
But the Hollywood moon didn’t
Smile the same old smile
That I’d grown up with
The lady in red
Just wanted my last dime
And I cried myself to sleep at night
Too dumb to run, too scared to fight
And too proud to admit it at the time
So I got me some gigs on Saturday nights
Not much more than orchestrated fights
I’d come home drunk and I’d try to write
But the words came out wrong
Hell bent and bound for a wasted youth
Too much gin and not enough vermouth
And no one to teach me
How to seek the truth
Before I put it into song
I still thought happiness
Was Lubbock, Texas
In my rear view mirror
My momma kept calling me home
But I just could not, would not hear her
And the vision was getting clearer
In my dreams
Well, I thank God each and every day
For giving me the music and words to say
I’d-a never made it any other way
He was my only friend
Now I sleep a little better at night
When I look in the mirror
In the morning light
The man I see was both wrong and right
He’s going home again
I guess happiness was Lubbock, Texas
In my rear view mirror
But now happiness is Lubbock, Texas
Growing nearer and dearer
And the vision is getting clearer
In my dreams
And I think I finally know
Just what it means
And when I die you can bury me
In Lubbock, Texas, in my jeans
For those who haven’t seen my Dear Diary posts before, a little explanation. This is my actual diary I wrote in for a full year, when I was 10 years old. I wrote every day, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, sometimes funny, sometimes boring, but it was all recorded. Names of relatives are only first initials with relationship in parentheses. I’ve typed the entries just as I wrote them, misspellings and all, but corrected in parentheses. More posts of Dear Diary can be found by using categories, or search box. Hope you enjoy reading my childhood diary! 🙂
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Dear Diary,
4/13/61 – I went to school. I asked the teacher what they did yesterday. They went walking. They went to C’s (a classmate) house. They saw alltheir dogs and chickens. Then they went over to E’s (classmate) house. C rode his pony. When I came home I played. I watched tv. Then I went to bed.
4/14/61 – I went to school. When I came home we went to B’s (my aunt’s sister). When we came back J (cousin) came over. She spent the night. Then we played. A sandstorm. We went over to N’s (aunt) When we came home we went to bed.
4/15/61 – I did not go to school. J and I played all day. When she went home we went to Granny’s house. We ate supper over there. When we went home we went to bed.
4/16/61 – I did not go to school. I played with J (cousin). We went over to N’s (aunt). We went riding. When I came home I played. Then I watched tv. Then I went to bed.
4/17/61 – I went to school. After school I went to play with B (classmate). When I came home I played. Then I watched tv and went to bed.
4/18/61 – I went to school. I rode my bicycle to school. When I came home I played outside. Then I watched tv. Then I went to bed.
4/19/61 – I went to school. At music I learned a new song. When I went home I got my report card. When I got home I played all day. Then I went to bed.
4/20/61 – I went to school. When I got home I played. Then I went to J’s (cousin) house. When I came home I went to the dime store. When I came home we went to Grand pas. P (sister) tried to ride a little bicycle. When I came home we showed a fim. (home movie). Then I went to bed.
4/21/ 61 – I went to school. When I came home I played. Then we went to Grand mas. When I came home I played. When I came in it was dark. Then I went to bed.
4/22/61 – I did not go to school. We went to the library. Then I went to town. I got some pants, and a hat.When I came home I played. J (cousin) and I went to N’s (aunt). Then went to B’s (aunt). We played all day. At night we rode bicycle’s . When I got home I went to bed.
I have a lot of boxes out in the garage, and in my closet that have been there for a long time. I thought it might be interesting to have a look inside, and post what all I find.
Some of these boxes are my stored away things, and some are boxes of saved stuff from my parents and grand-parents. It should be fun to see these long lost treasures.
I’ll be posting a new revelation as often as possible, with a few pictures, up until I either get tired of it, or run out of stuff. There are a lot of things to look through.
Hope you enjoy my ‘show & tell’ series! 🙂
Let’s have a look!
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This is a box of things my granny kept.
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~you can click on the pictures to enlarge~
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First up is this baby garment.
It had a note pinned to it that reads:
NR’s
Made out of Aunt Annies slip – which was about 15 years or more… 1925
NR is my father, and I don’t know who Aunt Annie is.
If the little dress was made from her slip that was at least 15 years old, it makes the slip made about 1910. So this garment is 108 years old. It is in really good shape, with only a little yellowing of the fabric.
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This is a handkerchief, that was embroidered by my Aunt Nina in 1942, according to the note pinned to it. (Nina made this 1942) So, it is 76 years old.
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World War II Ration Book. These were issued in 1942. In reading about them, I found that every American citizen was issued one, and in order to purchase goods like sugar, and other commodities, clothing, and gasoline, you had to have these books with the little stamps to tear off.
***
Toys, including little Army men, trucks, a tin soldier with a machine gun, and an airplane. There is something that looks like a real bullet? Definitely not a toy!
Have you ever not had a stove to cook on? I have…a couple of times. We lived in unfurnished rental houses for awhile, and there were no appliances. We did have our own furniture, and a refrigerator…just no stove.
I had to get a bit creative, to say the least. As a family of four, there comes a time, like daily, that you need to cook something. I did have a microwave…a giant one, compared to today’s models. I’d cook most things in there, and the meals came out pretty good.
A really surprising cooking method I used, was on a “Stir-Crazy” popcorn popper. You remember those, don’t you? It was the electric popcorn popper with the large, yellow dome. I figured that since the surface got really hot, I could use it to cook on…like an electric skillet. There was no temperature setting, though. It worked great for fried eggs, and also, pancakes came out good cooked on there.
Another time, another house, we had the same situation. I still used the microwave and the popcorn popper, but had also acquired a “Snackmaster Sandwich Maker”. We were in the big leagues, now. We got really creative using it. We could make corn dogs, pizza pockets, and even the pancakes came out fun – like puff-cakes!
Quite a while later, we did manage to get a stove, which made things easier to cook, although it is fun to remember how we ‘made do’ with what we had.
Next up, we needed a washing machine, because using that old-fashioned rub board in the sink was getting pretty tiresome.
I have a lot of boxes out in the garage, and in my closet that have been there for a long time. I thought it might be interesting to have a look inside, and post what all I find.
Some of these boxes are my stored away things, and some are boxes of saved stuff from my parents and grand-parents. It should be fun to see these long lost treasures.
I’ll be posting a new revelation as often as possible, with a few pictures, up until I either get tired of it, or run out of stuff. There are a lot of things to look through.
Hope you enjoy my ‘show & tell’ series! 🙂
Let’s have a look!
***
This is a box of things my granny kept.
***
~you can click on the pictures to enlarge~
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This is one of several vintage cigar boxes that were in some of the larger boxes I’ve been looking through. I think this is from the early 1930s.
Inside this cigar box I found…
Toy pistol & leather holster
2 small turtle shells (in small pill box from 1935)
2 rattlesnake rattles (In small pill box from 1935)
Antique Buster Brown Shoes tin whistle
1933 – 4th Grade English workbook (my Dad’s) & large pencil
What’s interesting about the little pill box is that the druggist filling the prescription has the same name as my brother-in-law. Now, my BIL was not born until the 1950s, I believe, and has never been a druggist, though he is a CNA. How weird is this!
For those who haven’t seen my Dear Diary posts before, a little explanation. This is my actual diary I wrote in for a full year, when I was 10 years old. I wrote every day, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, sometimes funny, sometimes boring, but it was all recorded. Names of relatives are only first initials with relationship in parentheses. I’ve typed the entries just as I wrote them, misspellings and all, but corrected in parentheses. More posts of Dear Diary can be found by using categories, or search box. Hope you enjoy reading my childhood diary! 🙂
***
Dear Diary,
1/22/61 – We went to eat dinner over to grand-ma’s. After dinner we all went riding. we went to Abbernathy, (Abernathy), New Deal, Hale center, Plainview, and to Tulia & Happy (all little TX towns around here). When we home we went over to Grand-ma’s and ate supper. When we came home we went to bed.
1/23/61 – I went to school and had fun. After I came home we went to get a book about birds and butterflys (butterflies) {these were a type of illustrated children’s encyclopedia they offered at the grocery store each week}. When we got home we ate supper and then played a game. Then we went to bed.
1/24/61 – I went to school. It snowed all day. When I was going to get In the car the door was stuck so we got in the front of the car. When I got home the trees were covered with Ice. then I traced some pictures. Then I went to bed.
1/25/61 – I went to school and got my report card. I brought my grades up. When I got home I showed It to mother and daddy. then I played and then I went to bed.
1/26/61 – I went to school. It snowed all day. daddy didn’t work today. at school we went to the museum. we went to see Ranching. we rode on a bus over there.
1/27/61 – I went to school and had fun. It snowed again. we did not go bowling because it snowed.
1/28/61 – today is Saturday and I did not go to school. P (sister) and I went out and played in the snow. we drwe (drew) all day.
1/29/61 – we played all day. we played with tinker toys and Paper dolls. Grand ma and Grand-pa, N (aunt) and B (uncle), H (uncle), and B (aunt) came over. when they went home we watched tv then we went to bed.
1/30/61 – I went to school and had an acheighment Test (achievement test). when I got home P (sister) and I got to ply (play) in the snow. when daddy came home we went to the store and got a book about cats and money. Grandpa came and got our dog house, so their puppy could sleep in it. then we went to bed.
1/31/61 – I went to school and we finished our test. When I got home I played outside. the snow has melted. M and O (friends of my parents) came over and we showed fims (films – home movies). When they went home we went to bed.
I have a lot of boxes out in the garage, and in my closet that have been there for a long time. I thought it might be interesting to have a look inside, and post what all I find.
Some of these boxes are my stored away things, and some are boxes of saved stuff from my parents and grand-parents. It should be fun to see these long lost treasures.
I’ll be posting a new revelation as often as possible, with a few pictures, up until I either get tired of it, or run out of stuff. There are a lot of things to look through.
Hope you enjoy my ‘show & tell’ series! 🙂
Let’s have a look!
***
This is a box of things my granny kept.
***
This is a small change purse with an attachment for keys. Inside were two old fashioned, plastic rain bonnets.
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This is a really cool old photo. It wasn’t marked in any way, so I have no idea what is being photographed for posterity here, or if any of my relatives were in the photo. I would suppose so, since my granny kept the picture.
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A well-worn deck of cards.
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A small wooden box. Inside this box were several interesting things. (you can click the photo to enlarge)
A couple of rings (not expensive)
A small pink plastic gun
Some cuff links
A blue flowered brooch
A military ribbon/medal?
A plastic owl with a leaf attached
I researched the box ad that was on the inside. The box originally contained a Helbros WWII Chrono watch. This company was very involved in war bonds. The ad says: Give Your Time – Victory – and Buy U. S. War Bonds and Savings Stamps.
